It’s incredible how much better your mood is when you get the first day of sunshine after a rainy spell. We went to bed last night listening to the rain still falling on our tarp, but, this morning, it was completely gone. After a couple of hours, the clouds even cleared off, and we had blue sky. And sun! Real sun! It felt amazing. After fighting through two days of serious rain, it was wonderful to walk in the sun. (Well, as much as we could, anyway. Some of these woods are thick, and stay quite dark even on the sunniest of days.)

Setting up camp tonight was, similarly, vastly better than yesterday. We didn’t have to huddle under the tarp immediately, and not everything was soaking wet and smelly. Even tomorrow morning is going to be a whole lot better: it feels so much better to put on dry pants in the morning than soaking-wet ones. I suppose I could go on and on, but the point is made: the weather can make all the difference in the world out here. And it’s so much better when it’s sunny instead of raining.

Today also marked our last big ascent before coming into Stehekin, Washington, our very last resupply stop. It was a doozy: 3,700′ of climbing — but we tackled it just fine, and now tomorrow will be all downhill.

We also passed a big marker today: it’s now less than a hundred miles until we get to Canada. That seems scarcely believable — can it really be? I remember when we passed the point where it was 1,000 miles to Canada, and that was a long, long time ago. It should be less than a week before we’re done, and that also seems impossible. Even trying to contemplate what “done” means seems impossible. You mean, really, we can take a shower every single day? We can eat whatever we want, any time we want? We get to stay in a real bed every single night? It all seems…impossible, like that can’t really be happening. Yet I know it will, and far sooner than I’d imagine.